"Kaiser Permanente Encourages Plant-Based Diets

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Kaiser Permanente Encourages Plant-Based Diets

By Melissa Nguyen | May 16, 2013
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The healthcare company’s peer-reviewed medical science journal tells physicians to promote plant-based diets to patients.To address the rising cost of healthcare and skyrocketing rates of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, medical publication The Permanente Journal recently released an article encouraging physicians to advise patients to reduce meat, dairy, and processed food consumption and implement a plant-based diet. It points to research showing that consuming whole foods can reduce the need for medication for chronic illnesses and decrease risk of fatal ischemic heart disease, all while offering the most cost-effective prevention and low-risk medical intervention. “Healthy eating may be best achieved with a plant-based diet … Physicians should consider recommending a plant-based diet to all their patients,” the article states."

thepermanentejournal.org/issues/2013/spring/5117-nutrition.html

balcom is a vegan but also a reseacher in animal behavior. the nutritionfacts.org site uses only peer reviewed articles on deit, health and nutrition.

btw, wanting to be eaten after you expire is quite different than murdering you in order to consume your corpse, which is what is done in the case of the 10 billion farmed animals who are killed every year in the USA alone.

You said...."1. Nobody can say for certain what the F-35 is capable of or not capable of." then went on to write tomes and tomes about what's it's capable of, most of which has been contradicted by the testing, but you would rather believe what some test pilot said it may be able to do some day in the future if they fix all the problems or what your flight simulator games represented. HA!!!! Good one.

There's a HUGE difference between random vegan's self serving idea of what is and what is not good nutrition and factual historical data about the existence or non-existence of dogfighting since WW1. The cracked.com was simply a follow up entertainment article delineating 5 notable dogfights since WW1.

Smell ya later.

I repeatedly said that it doesn't have to be as good as a dogfighter as the F-16. And I even explain what would happen if it for some odd reason did get into a dog fight.

You've got some very good selective reading. Because when I linked you heaps of peer reviewed scientific articles about nutritional research, you come back with "I don't read internet science".
And then you proceed to link an article from cracked.com which is infotainment when being generous, and the article contains not a single reference.

Good day to you sir.

I can't agree with that. It might somewhat address the environmental factor but it doesn't satisfy the ethical reasons (or the health reasons if you care for yourself). There is also no reason why you can't do both. Being vegan and not having kids is not mutually exclusive, and it would address the immediate problem, until the long term (population) problem is resolved.

Meat is never healthy in any amount, just like cigarettes aren't, I came to that conclusion after reading the above mentioned books. Regular doctors get their nutritional advice from organisations formed by companies that sell meat and coincidentally the drugs that treat the chronic illnesses the meat causes. It's a great business model that's for sure. Make money from the cause, make money from the treatment.

Something that does not exist will never be aware of it's lack of existence. Therefore it cannot be sad that it is not existing, since you need to exist to experience the concept of loss.

Like I said. No GOOD reasons to eat animals
Hedonism doesn't usually count as a good reason.

I'll eat a bloody raw steak on youtube if you can think of a good reason

I'm not disagreeing with you that there are farms where the animals are treated well in comparison. But the majority of food does not come from these farms. Like you said these are usually small scale operations like your aunt. We're talking 50-60 billion animals a year. Millions of animals per hour in the US alone. They simply need to kill them as young as possible to even meet the demand, through industrialized means. They call it factory farming for a reason.
And no factory farmers don't care about the well-being of animals. Any minor growth benefits of happy animals are easily outweighed by a few hormone injections. It's cheaper and faster. If they cared: They wouldn't rip piglets balls off with their bare hands to neuter them. They wouldn't keep "cage less" chickens in the dark to save on electricity. They wouldn't hold a chickens head to a sander or iron to de-beak them. They wouldn't grind up baby male chickens in a blender alive. They wouldn't cut off pigs tales without anesthetic. So on and So on. Your food might comes from some nice farm like your aunts, but for most of people it does not.

You're right that eating animals that died of old age is probably the only truly ethical way you could eat them. Though they'd have to have reproduced naturally too.

I'm not a fan of the eat less concept because of the morality aspect. It might work for some people, and it's probably not a bad short term stepping stone to get to people thinking about the consequences. But it just doesn't add up to me ethically: I wouldn't go from kicking a dog 10 times a week to just 3 times a week, because it means I'm kicking 7 less dogs. It's still a terrible thing to do, so why even be part of that cycle.

Because most people are raised as meat eaters, I think their perspective is completely wrong, as was mine. When they talk to vegans they always give reasons to not give up animal products. But to me the question really is: What is the reason TO eat any animal products at all?


Health wise it's a no-brainer there are a ton of good books about nutrition, like "How Not To Die" by Dr. Michael Greger, or any book by Dr. Neal Barnard, Dr. Cadwell Esselstyn, or Dr. John McDougall. ( all their work is based on thousands of peer reviewed and published research papers ).

Animal compassion wise it's a no-brainer. Animals want to live and be happy period. Everything else is just an excuse to keep exploiting them.

With documentaries like Cowspiracy and Earthlings coming out, it's people are becoming aware that we're all on one planet and if people went vegan overnight, that's 1/2 of the global warming gone. That's 1 football field a second of rainforest (and all of the animals and unique species ) being destroyed. That's the fish not going extinct in the next 10 years. That's GMO's not killing the pollinating bees and earthworms (which are necessary part of the ecosystem, we'll die without them).

So what reason is really left to eat any animal products?

Taste. People don't want to become vegan because they think they are giving up something and it's not true. It's more like trading a bad habit for something truly great. And it's free. And it has the potential to change the world.

I'm yet to hear a good reason to eat any animal product.(from anyone I mean)

My 2 cents....

1) Don't EVER get your science just from the internet. ALWAYS verify anything you think you've learned with published peer reviewed science publications/articles.
Veganism does NOT cure or inoculate against cancer (which I'm assuming is what you mean by the #1 killer in the western world). If it did, that would be headline news and easy to prove, since vegans would all be cancer free, they're not. That's some serious BS right there. It may be HELPFUL against heart disease, I'll grant you that much. If that's what you meant, ignore the above.
If the point is eating healthier, excluding processed foods is exponentially better than excluding meats, and should be the first step people take when changing their diet, long before excluding meats all together.

2)So now Vegans are just like anti-choice people who think their choice should be the only choice for everyone!? I hate to tell you, but that position will make your movement lose, no question. Your position leads to only one logical conclusion, attempting to force people to stop eating meat. You don't change minds by force. I suggest you try a seriously different tact, or I fear you're methods may destroy your movement.

3)There is NO "better" alternative to meat. There may be alternatives, but they are not "better" nutritionally. The energy humans gain from eating meat is why we have the brain that allows you to take those positions, plants simply don't offer than dense nutritional value. True enough, evolution is barely still in effect for humans, but that's no reason to stop feeding your body/brain.

Personally, I can see no rational reason to stop eating meat except for moral or health reasons, and if you eat meat raised properly and morally, those moral reasons no longer exist. As we've discussed before, meat from small, local farms rather than large factory farms is often raised with love and care, so there's no abuse, only a scheduled end to life. I have no moral objection to that (and have a hard time seeing how others might have a reasonable objection to it) so I'll continue to eat meat, but I do make an effort to eat only morally raised meats. When the odd occasion happens when I can't choose the meats I prefer, I do feel somewhat guilty, but not enough to go pure vegetarian, certainly not vegan. (which reminds me, all dairy is not produced immorally either. Some smaller farms still exist that treat their cattle with care, but they are sadly disappearing as people usually only buy factory farmed dairy as well, it's far cheaper).
For those who eat so much meat that it's a health issue (yes, I do agree that it causes many health issues if you eat too much), I'm right there with you saying they should eat way less, or none, until they get their health under control.

As I said to @newtboy sometime ago in a similar(ish) conversation, I appreciate your responses. It's nice to talk to someone not just spitting bile (which you'd do less if you ate a plant-based whole food diet ).

Those 'multiple phases of science' saying some food was good or bad at various times of your life is mostly the lobbyists and corporations making smoke screens. It's been known for decades that a plant-based whole food diet is protective against the #1 killer in the Western world. Again, it's the same as the tobacco companies. When the science disagrees with you, you cause a confusion smokescreen so people say exactly what you just said. And evidently it worked -- until the last few years when the internet and a handful of movies and books have started making it very clear what's going on. If you have a short attention span, I suggest you watch just a few 5-min videos on NutritionFacts. The guy is funny and has videos about just about everything in nutrition. And he takes everything from the newest studies. He also has a great book that came out recently, How Not to Die which is a fun read considering it's a diet science book.

Re: personal choice -- I understand you annoyance at being belittled by vegetarians/vegans, but you have to understand that we don't see it as a "personal choice". We see it as a moral one. Why is it not a "personal choice" to molest children? What if someone likes to molest children? It doesn't matter because, morally, you should not. And you're causing harm to another. The question is why are animals not allowed inside our moral-consideration-circle. Why are they excluded?

I personally think that vegetarians are hypocrites if they're doing it for moral reasons alone. You could argue that meat is murder, but dairy is torture. But, you gotta take whatever steps you need to get there. It's hard, I know. Giving up dairy was really hard.

My argument usually isn't about sentience. It's about choices. Why cause harm to something you don't need to just for your pleasure when there are literally better alternatives? We do, indeed, have to eat, so I eat the lowest form on the food chain that I can to survive. They just also luckily happen to be the most nutritious.

@newtboy: Just to be clear, I really appreciate your comments. It's nice to talk to an omnivore who doesn't just respond with "I'LL EAT TWICE AS MUCH MEAT AS YOU DO TO MAKE UP FOR YOUR VEGANISM!" I'm trying to be objective, and I appreciate your attempt as well.

That being said...

I respect the genuine care you give to your animals. I didn't know you or your family (or both) owned such a farm. It does sound like you do, truly, meet their needs as animals. However, (and I hate to bring out the really controversial stuff), I'm sure plenty of slave-owners treated their slaves with genuine humanity. But that doesn't excuse the categorical enslavement of other beings. Despite all care given to those animals, they are still not able to live their natural lives as animals on earth. I don't see why our subjugation, no matter how "humane", can be considered anything less than "inhumane".

Now, the comparison to "most children in the world" is a moot one. Yes, of course everywhere there are going to be worse things happening. But the point is that we are rational, (hopefully) decent, higher-order-understanding-of-the-universe beings. Humans seem to like to cherry-pick when their huge brain is an excuse for greatness, or ignored and "we're just animals after all". So, just because there is suffering outside the scope of our influence, we do all have the ability to stop eating meat. Pretty easily, in fact, since there are tons and tons and tons of other means to get all the nutrition we need (not to mention way, way healthier means).

The point is that we are completely and totally (especially as upper-middle class 1st-world citizens) capable of not eating meat this very moment. You can't, however, change the living conditions in the slums of India by yourself right now.

And explain to me how mentally handicapped humans are not animals. What is the distinction? They are both objectively less intelligent. If anything, animals are more capable of surviving on their own. What makes mentally handicapped people any more special than animals? Just because they're human? That seems arbitrary. True, they should be treated differently because they are different animals, but I mean why should one be treated to our moral consideration and one should not? What makes humans so damn special?

And that "sustenance" argument is really, really misguided. As said above, you can eat an entire vegan diet and be probably even more healthy than an omnivore. And animals are not minimally suffering. Yes, a very cherished, rare group, as your animals are, are "minimally suffering", but many, many, many, many more are being horribly abused for that sustenance that can be gained elsewhere (with suffering of its own, truly. I always hear the "well, there are people given slave wages to pick vegetables in California". But, you'll be eating those vegetables and fruits anyway. That's an entirely other battle that needs to be waged in other ways, not through lack of consumption).

My assumption was not that 100% of farmers treat their animals inhumanely. My assumption was that billions of animals are being treated inhumanely. And the way parents treat their children is a red herring. That's not my argument at all. And again, it's outside the realm of my influence.

And to counter your last argument... my same argument above follows for the "food chain/web" argument. Once and for all:

We are rational, amazing, smart, complex and powerful beings on this planet. We have it within our power (each of us) to not eat meat. This is "against nature". But so is basically OUR ENTIRE CIVILIZATION. What makes us truly different from animals is that exact ability. To step back and choose our actions. Are you saying humans not capable of choosing their actions -- those with so much in the 1st world countries? That we're all forced to, by nature, to eat meat? That is the cognitive dissonance I speak of. That we're so special because we are rational beings, but at the same time we must eat meat because we are not rational human beings.

This entire argument was not endorsed by PETA, because they're a bunch of assholes -- but despite being assholes one can't argue that they have brought about change. Change comes from all angles. Grassroots, insane radicals, scientists, humanitarians. They all try to bring change in different ways and succeed influencing different groups. PETA's brazenness is its power. Large corporations, like McDonald's, must respond to such a power. Despite being assholes. Both of them.

--

I want to end on a note of humility -- that I admit to having that same cognitive dissonance when it comes to animals. As a cat owner, I often visualize the mound of turkey carcasses that both of my lovable kittens live on top of. And they truly are carnivores in that they cannot find sustenance outside of meat. How do I rationalize all the turkey deaths (my cats only exclusively eat turkey for some goddamn reason) just so I can have my lovable pets? I can't. And it kills me. Not sure if I'll get cats after they die.

--

Thanks for reading. That was a lot.

Buttle is absolutely right; we don't know. Nutritional research continues as we learn more about about the incredibly complex biochemistry in our bodies. However, the narrator conveys this same idea a relatively roundabout way. We don't know what particular diet works best (he names vegan, paleo, and mediterranean diets specifically), but he claims that all of them will work well. We perhaps don't specifically know *why* they work, but there is compelling population level data to show that they do. We will eventually be able to unearth why they work, and then likely improve upon the diets further.

absolutely nailed it, this is all anyone needs to know about nutrition to get their diet about 95% right. As he says, just choose your variant - i.e. the porkchop variant for @dag

Unfortunately...

http://www.joslin.org/info/correcting_internet_myths_about_aspartame.html

The whole "sweet taste tricks your body in to releasing insulin" is complete bunk. A simple glucose tolerance test would show if pancreatic hormone secretion was elevated due to aspartame ingestion...

Oh look!

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3522147

A nutritive sweetener, aspartame (L-aspartyl-L-phenylalanine methylester) was administered orally to normal controls and diabetic patients in order to evaluate effects on blood glucose, lipids and pancreatic hormone secretion. An oral glucose tolerance test was also performed in the same subjects as a control study of aspartame administration. In 7 normal controls and 22 untreated diabetics, a single dose of 500 mg aspartame, equivalent to 100 g glucose in sweetness, induced no increase in blood glucose concentration. Rather, a small but significant decrease in blood glucose was noticed 2 or 3 h after administration. The decrease in blood glucose was found to be smallest in the control and became greater as the diabetes increased in severity. No significant change in blood insulin or glucagon concentration during a 3-h period was observed in either the controls or the diabetics. The second study was designed to determine the effects of 2 weeks' continuous administration of 125 mg aspartame, equal in sweetness to the mean daily consumption of sugar (20-30 g) in Japan, to 9 hospitalized diabetics with steady-state glycemic control. The glucose tolerance showed no significant change after 2 weeks' administration. Fasting, 1 h and 2 h postprandial blood glucose, blood cholesterol, triglyceride and HDL-cholesterol were also unaffected. From these and other published results, aspartame would seem to be a useful alternative nutrient sweetener for patients with diabetes mellitus.

Yes, phosphoric acid isn't great for your teeth, and yes, it's better to drink water, but the majority of the blurb against diet type low calorie sweeteners start with conspiracy theorists and nuts who believe you can cure cancer with herbal teas.

Sorry poster, no upvote for blatant misinformation.

The thing is, there are already well established nutrition supplement shakes that have been around for years with lots of clinical data to support their effectiveness, and moreover they cost less than half as much as Soylent. You can find them at every grocery story and pharmacy. I myself tend to keep a 12 pack of the generic equivalent of Ensure Plus around for when I oversleep or get home too late to cook or something and it's better to slug one down than to miss a meal.

Hell, their own FAQ makes it absolutely clear that they're well aware of the previous use of the name. They picked it from the book. Seems remarkably tone-deaf to me, but it's not my money invested.

Frankly, I can't think of any way I could be less interested in this...food is more than just nutrition. I'd no more use this pablum than I'd be interested in the dinner-in-a-pill from the Jetsons.

But it's a cool commercial, nonetheless.

I thought perhaps it was satire or something, but it seems to be a real product.... why would you name a nutritional supplement Soylent? I mean nobody during the naming stage pointed out the movie?